Singapore’s giant supertrees: The ultimate vertical gardens

Singapore is in the middle of a project that looks like a Miyazaki movie come to life. The city’s 18 “supertrees” do everything that normal trees do, only better. They will stretch up to 164 feet tall, grow 200 species of flowers, ferns, and epiphytes, collect solar energy, harvest rainwater, and work as a natural cooling system. Oh, and one of them has a bistro at its summit.

The project’s been in the works for awhile and scheduled to open up this summer. The company that designed the supertrees calls them “magical vertical gardens” and says it looked to orchids for inspiration. This probably wins for best biomimetic project ever. You almost feel bad for actual trees: They’ll never be able to match this.